The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (Valancourt eClassics) Read Free

amazing persistence in his vocation despite the hardships and trials of twenty years. The story makes a deep impression: far deeper than its narrator anticipates. Rose seems, to those who hear the tale of his tribulations and steadfastness, more than mortal clay. ‘You owe it to that man to propose him for the Paparchy,’ says one of the listeners; and so it comes about that he who was for so long rejected is taken to be the corner stone: George Arthur Rose is chosen as Pope.
    There may seem, in this summary, to be more improbability in that turn of the story than there is as Rolfe presents it. He handles the problem of making anything so unlikely seem probable with skill. When Rose, attending the Cardinal in Rome, not knowing what is in store for him, learns with amazement that the choice has fallen on him, the reader also is agreeably astonished; for though he has been shown the breakdown of the Way of Scrutiny, and the necessity of Compromise, the secret of the selection is kept from him – as it is from Rose, until, in the Sistine Chapel, he hears an intense voice from the gloom reciting (in Latin) the question: ‘Reverend Lord, the Sacred College has elected thee to be the successor of St Peter. Wilt thou accept pontificality?’
    Now the fun begins. Unexpected though the transformation is, Rose instantly adjusts himself, and shows his will to rule. He is not in the least abashed by the extraordinary dignity conferred upon him, and carries himself with enigmatical equanimity all through the long ceremony of consecration. At the conferring of the episcopal ring he annoys the Cardinals by demanding an amethyst instead of the proffered emerald. When asked what pontifical name he would choose:
     
    ‘Hadrian the Seventh’: the response came unhesitatingly, undemonstratively.
    ‘Your Holiness would perhaps prefer to be called Leo, or Pius, or Gregory, as is the modern manner?’ the Cardinal-Dean inquired with imperious suavity.
    ‘The previous English pontiff was Hadrian the Fourth; the present English pontiff is Hadrian the Seventh. It pleases Us; and so, by Our Own impulse, We command.’
    Then there was no more to be said.
     
    Hadrian’s next act is to require the opening of a blocked window looking out over the city, one of those blocked up in 1870 in the dispute between the Papal and temporal powers, and not opened since. And, despite the protests of the Cardinals, opened it is, and from it a tiny-seeming figure in silver and gold, radiant in the sun, gives the Apostolic Benediction to the City and the World.
    It is not necessary to follow the story in detail through all its convolutions to the end. During his two decades of wandering misery, George Arthur Rose, driven in upon himself, has had plenty of time in which to clarify his theories and wishes; now he has the chance to give them effect, and he does. He breaks the self-imposed Papal obligation of remaining within the Vatican walls by walking in procession to his coronation. He astonishes the world by an Epistle to all Christians, and by a Bull in which, on the text that ‘My Kingdom is not of this World’, he makes formal and unconditional renunciation of all claim to temporal sovereignty. He denounces Socialism and the principle of equality in an Epistle to the English; and in further demonstration of the unwordliness which should be the mark of God’s minister, sells the Vatican treasures for a vast sum, which he gives to the poor. Not the least interesting part of this section of the book is the interview which he gives to the Italian ambassador for the discussion of the world’s political future. Some of Fr. Rolfe’s guesses were very far from the fact, but looking back at them, as I did, after twenty years, the real shrewdness of his observation was very clear.
    Such a story is obviously a difficult one to bring to a conclusion; and Fr. Rolfe, with less plausibility than in other parts of his fantasy, relies upon the machinations of a